A blog full of bits of historical information, comments & observations, photographs (old and new), oddball ramblings and other totally random stuff.

Saturday, March 8, 2014

HOUSEHOLD DISCOVERIES

I’m halfway through my second novel, a work
of historical fiction that covers two generations of a group of families that
lived in rural Maine
between 1820 and, roughly, 1920.

One of the hardest parts of
writing historical fiction is shifting perspectives, moving back to an earlier
time and looking at things the way people did back then—you can’t write
convincingly about the early 1900s when you’re busy with a 2014 mindset.

It
just doesn’t work.

So I comb flea markets for things that will
help me make that trip back in time; one of the greatest sources for me is
books—not old, dry history books about dates and battles and land acquisitions,
etc.; they’re pretty useless to me.

I look instead for books written
during the time period, books my characters might read themselves. I take them
home and read them, cover to cover: agricultural census books, town reports and
old school textbooks; novels, newspapers; books about farm buildings, breeding
and veterinary practices; cookbooks.

This one, Household Discoveries, is a gem. It was published in 1908 in New
York by the Success Company, publishers of “Success Magazine,” and has more
than five hundred pages of household tips, suggestions, recipes and common
sense.

Here’s how to use brick dust
and/or kerosene to scour knives; clean black goods (mourning clothes) with
alcohol and water; how to get dirt (“matter which is out of place”) from
clothes, barrels, harness and tools; how to fasten a bag for waste thread to your
sewing table.

You can decorate your home—all rooms.
There’s a section on lighting (only one electric lamp in the bunch); beds
and mattresses and pillows; how to set up the furniture in your parlor.

Have a problem with rats? Ahh!
Simply mix a dough of phosphorous paste (lard, phosphorus and alcohol) with
corn meal, oatmeal of flour and sugar, add a few drops of aniseed. Place pieces
of this dough in rat runways.

It sends me back to the early 1900s, all
right; oftentimes, I confess, I’m glad I’m not staying. Consider this piece of
advice in the chapter about hairdressing: Professional
hairdressers do not advocate shampooing the hair oftener than once a month...

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At last!

In the early 1800s, five families settle on the Eastern River in Pittston, Maine. Together, they build a strong and lasting agricultural neighborhood based on New England values of community and reciprocity. Both fiction and social history, The Eastern flows through the experiences and truths we share with those who have lived before us.